At times in Christian thought, the priorities of pure doctrine and passionate mission have been perceived as opposites on a spectrum where emphasis on one results in neglect of the other, but without one, the other is deficient and doomed to crumble. Mission without doctrine is like a body without a skeleton, but apart from mission, doctrine is like dry bones in a museum. A Lutheran Reformission maintains a dual emphasis, resulting in doctrinal missions as well as missional doctrine.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Q:Why has there been so much opposition
among religious leaders about the government’s new mandate concerning insurance
coverage for contraception?Does the
Bible say that it is a sin to use birth control?

Most news coverage of this issue has focused
on the Roman Catholic Bishops’ public opposition to this mandate.The particular reason for their opposition is
because this policy would require them to provide contraception,
abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization surgery in their health plans—all of
which are forbidden according to Roman Catholic doctrine.

Even though there is a narrow
exemption covering churches themselves, the exemption does not extend to
non-church religious employers, such as religiously-affiliated hospitals,
schools, colleges, and social service agencies.This results in a circumstance where many religiously-affiliated
employers would be forced to pay for and provide drugs and procedures to which
their doctrine and conscience are opposed or face extreme fines and
penalties.Even after the accommodation announced
the following week by the administration, which shifts the responsibility of
providing the services to the insurer rather than the employer, they argue that
the cost of these services would still be paid by employers who self-insure
their plans or passed on in their premiums in cases where the organization
purchases insurance, thus forcing them to provide for services they consider
morally wrong.

This mandate and the
previously-mentioned opposition have sometimes been framed as a women’s health
issue, but the opposition is not on the grounds of disagreements over the
services offered, but rather on the grounds of religious freedom.The religious leaders opposing this mandate
are not asking that the services be made illegal, nor are they asking that
other employers and insurers be forbidden from providing them.Instead, they argue that the Free Exercise
Clause of the First Amendment forbids the government from requiring them to
provide and pay for services to which they are morally opposed.

There are a great many non-Catholic
Christian leaders who have joined the opposition to this mandate.Their participation is not because of
contraception, or even surgical sterilization, because their doctrine does not
forbid it, but rather because abortion-inducing drugs, such as the
morning-after pill are included in the mandate.They argue that providing coverage for their employees to receive
abortion-inducing drugs amounts to participation in murder according to the
teachings of their churches because these drugs are known to cause the death of
an already-conceived child.Since the
Bible treats unborn children as persons and speaks of them being already known
by God and formed by Him, they consider abortion of any kind to be murder, and
many of them have stated that they would be jailed rather than participate in
such an act.

Many of the denominations which are
opposing this mandate, including my own (The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod)
typically avoid taking stands on political issues.They refuse to endorse candidates for public
office, the denomination and its leaders do not publicly affiliate themselves
with any political party, do not have Washington offices or lobbyists, and do
not accept federal funding to do their work.

They urge their parishioners to pay
their taxes and participate in their civic duty even if the government acts
immorally, and they believe in obeying the government, even when one does not
like its laws.At the same time they
also believe, according to Acts 5:29, that Christians “must obey God rather
than man.”So, when this mandate was
announced, they felt compelled to speak out, because the government was
obligating them to materially participate in acts they consider immoral.Their demand was not that the government obey
the Bible, but rather that the government honor the nations commitments
embodied in the Constitution by not interfering in their freedom of religion
and conscience.

As to the question of the propriety
of birth control in general, the Bible, at all times, considers children to be
a blessing to a husband and wife from God, and defends their lives, even while
yet unborn, causing the majority of Christians throughout history to insist
that aborting them would be murder, including contraceptive methods that could
cause already-conceived children to die.However, it is silent on birth control methods that prevent conception
by use of barriers or preventing ovulation, leaving these methods as matters of
conscience to be decided between husbands and wives.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Q:Why do some churches use wine
for Communion and others use grape juice?What did Jesus use in the first Lord’s Supper and what are the potential
consequences if we use something else?What alternatives does a person have who has been advised not to consume
alcohol because of alcoholism or for medical reasons?

When Jesus instituted the Lord’s
Supper on the night He was betrayed, He was eating the Passover meal with His
disciples.This fact, along with the
words Jesus used, does a great deal to reveal to us what was in the cup that
Jesus was using on that evening.

First, the wine was made from grapes,
because Jesus refers to it as “fruit of the vine,” which would exclude wine
made from any other fruits.We also know
that grape wine was used in the Passover meal and that the wine was fermented
wine.

In addition to the traditions of the
Passover meal, the Greek word used in the Bible for the drink used in the
Lord’s Supper specifically means fermented wine.If it were anything else, the authors would
have used a different word or modified the word for “wine” with an additional
word to describe the difference.

Further evidence can be found in that
the Passover is celebrated in the Spring.Because Pasteurization and Refrigeration had not yet been invented, it
would only be possible for a person to drink unfermented grape juice
immediately during the grape harvest, because within a matter of days, the
juice would begin to ferment as a result of the heat and the natural yeasts
found on the skin of the grapes.

Throughout history, churches have
typically attempted to use the same elements as the original institution to the
closest degree possible.This is because
God’s command includes specific elements and His promises are tied to those
elements.While we cannot say whether
the wine was red or white, or what grape it was made from, or the particular
alcohol content, we do know that it was fermented grape wine.

For Christians who believe that Jesus
body and blood really become present in the Lord’s Supper and that the Lord’s
Supper does forgive sins, the consequence of changing the elements is that it
has the potential to introduce doubt concerning whether the Sacrament is valid
and capable of delivering the blessing God has promised.

Typically, when grape juice is used
exclusively in congregations, it is in congregations with one or both of two
teachings as a part of their theology.The first of these is a belief that the bread and wine in the Lord’s
Supper represent or symbolize Jesus’ body and blood rather than being His body
and blood.As a result of this belief, using
grape juice does not present concerns about the Sacrament’s validity for them.

The second of these is that they have
some level of discomfort with the use of alcohol by Christians, sometimes even
to the point of considering all alcohol consumption sinful.Since they cannot reconcile the use of fermented
wine with this belief, they resolve the tension by using unfermented grape
juice.

Occasionally, even Sacramental denominations
will offer unfermented grape juice as an alternative for those who struggle
with alcoholism or have been medically advised not to consume alcohol.However, in light of other alternatives many
pastors are now finding even this concession unnecessary.

For example, there are a variety of
wines available on today’s market which have been fermented in the usual
manner, but distilled to 0.5% alcohol content, resulting in a true wine that is
virtually without alcohol.Another
option is to use the normal communion wine offered in the congregation, but
dilute it with water to the point where the alcohol content is
insignificant.

Many have also found a return to using
the chalice (common cup) as an excellent alternative, because the communicant
can merely allow the wine to touch their lips rather than consuming the entire
contents of an individual cup.Many
alcoholics also report that receiving wine during communion by the pastor’s
hand from a common cup is such a different experience from receiving an
alcoholic drink by their own hand that it eliminates the temptation to return
to their alcoholic behaviors.

In addition to these practical
reasons, since we know that Jesus instituted Lord’s Supper for our benefit, we
can have a faithful confidence that God would certainly not allow a Christian
to suffer spiritual harm in a Sacrament intended to bless them.

Lutheranism is more than a cultural identity or a denominational label. In fact, this cultural and institutional baggage may be the primary obstacle in Lutheranism’s path.

To be a Lutheran is not dependent on a code of behavior or a set of common customs. Instead, to be a Lutheran is to receive Jesus in His Word, Body, and Blood for the forgiveness of sins in the Divine Service; and to be bearers of this pure Truth to a broken world corrupted with sin, death, and every lie of the devil and man’s own sinful heart.

While the false and misleading ideas of human religious invention are appealing to sin-blinded minds, they fail when exposed to the realities of life. It is tragic when souls are led to confusion and despair because of the false religious ideas with which they are surrounded. The Biblical doctrine taught by the Apostles and restored at the Reformation holds answers which are relevant regardless of time or place and offers assurance of forgiven sins and eternal life who all who believe its message.

I am a husband, a father, the pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church (LCMS) in Burt, IA, and track chaplain at Algona Raceway.